Author: CS Admin

Return to Robbery

civil asset forfeiture, asset, forfeiture, police, abuse, stealing, theft, property, Common Sense

Last week, the crooks in Washington proved themselves nice enough to let us know that their rip-off machine is back in action. The Obama Justice Department announced the resumption of the “equitable sharing” program, whereby the Feds sing Kumbaya with state and local police while sharing the loot they snatch from innocent folks through “civil asset forfeiture.”

Yes, there again is that strange three-word, legalistic, police-pocketing term: civil asset forfeiture.

Free country? Not so long as local police and federal government agencies seize people’s stuff without ever charging or convicting those people of a crime. Simply by claiming suspicion . . . about their stuff.

To get their money or property back, the victims must hire an attorney and sue the government. Guilty until proven innocent. Only those raking in the ill-gotten gains are shameless enough to defend this completely un-American practice.

Which more than doubled in use during President Obama’s first five years in office, according to The Washington Post. Today, police and various government agents actually take more value from innocent Americans through civil asset forfeiture than do burglars through burglary.

“As President Obama counts down the days of his last year in office,” the Cato Institute’s Adam Bates wrote back in January, “one positive step he could take for his legacy would be to halt the federal government’s use of civil asset forfeiture and make the suspension of the equitable sharing program permanent.”

Yet, despite Mr. Obama’s talk about criminal justice reform, and despite his ability to bring justice with a stroke of his pen (and actually within his constitutional authority), last week the Feds instead went back to business as usual, ripping people off.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Also, please consider showing your appreciation by dropping something in our tip jar (this link will take you to the Citizens in Charge donation page… and your contribution will go to the support of the Common Sense website). Maintaining this site takes time and money.

Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!

Tags asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, corruption, crime, law, police

Accountability crime and punishment education and schooling insider corruption local leaders responsibility

Schooled in Corruption

Detroit, kickbacks, bribes, crime, education, schools

Michigan’s governor just signed a $49 million emergency funding bill, designed by legislators to keep Detroit’s public schools open.

Open for what?

Will any of that dough actually make it to the classroom, where children might possibly be educated?

Or, as I inquired at Townhall yesterday, is it merely another opening for . . . graft?

Less than a week after the rescue bill, U. S. Attorney Barbara McQuade brought criminal charges against more than a dozen DPS principals and administrators, as well as a vendor of school supplies. Their kickback scheme was simple: school officials received big, fat bribes from the vendor for school supplies that, as the Detroit Free Press put it, “were rarely ever delivered.”

The scam involved at least twelve separate Detroit schools over as long as 13 years. During that time, more than $900,000 was paid in bribes to DPS officials.

The newspaper highlighted how “shocked” teachers were that their principals had been indicted. “It’s pitiful that they’re going after principals who are probably just doing what they need to do even if it might be a little bit unethical in order to provide the students in their schools with the supplies and materials that they need that district and the state should be providing us,” was the excuse one teacher offered.

“A little bit unethical”?

Frankly, the fraud didn’t deliver, but deny “supplies and materials” to students — supplies taxpayers had sacrificed to provide.

This same teacher added that her indicted principal is “always putting students’ interests first. It’s not just rhetoric with her. It’s actual practice.”

Except for the graft.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!

Tags bribery, crime, Detroit, education, graft, public schools, schools

crime and punishment folly ideological culture responsibility too much government

Pincher, Pinchee

police, crime, law, rights, pinch, juvenile, illustration

Limited government sports several rationales. The need for it pertains on many levels. One such level we don’t think about enough? This: Not every rights violation warrants calling in the law.

Take the strange case of Breana Evans, 12-year-old assailant, charged with misdemeanor battery.

What did she do?

She pinched the gluteal posterior of a boy she did not know.

Now, pinching the butt-end of strangers is a breach not only of decorum (to the extent that this standard we call “decorum” even exists any more), but of a pinchee’s rights.

Yet it was a mere pinch.

And the boy did not press charges.

The school’s “resource deputy” did not arrest her; she was merely suspended from school.

It would have remained a minor matter (so to speak) had not the boy’s mother “insisted to police that he was the victim of battery, and so they had no choice but to arrest Breana,” as Robby Soave explained over at Reason. “She was Mirandized and put in a patrol car. They took her mugshot and booked her into juvenile detention.”

The escalation of the dispute over carnal rites and personal rights into a matter fit for the police is, it seems to me, a grave result of a sort of cultural hysteria about all sorts of things. The willingness of some adults to push children through our harsh, bureaucratic, and often ruthless criminal justice system is sad to behold.

It is more indecent than a pinch.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Your help in spreading the message of common sense and liberty is very much appreciated!

Tags assault, child, children, crime, law, public schools, rights

Accountability folly government transparency incumbents local leaders responsibility term limits

Incumbent Upon Heaven

Markwayne Mullin, term limits, lies, Oklahoma, politicians, lie

Many who pledged to limit their terms in Congress have gotten elected and, then . . . actually kept their word. Yet, with the temptations of power, combined with the acute narcissism of politicians, not a few have flung their honor aside to break their promise.

Four years ago, Oklahoma Congressman Markwayne Mullin was a challenger, “who pledged repeatedly . . . not to serve more than six years in the House.” Okie voters limited their congressional reps to three terms (six years) via a ballot initiative back in 1994. Of course, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that and 22 other state-imposed congressional term limits laws just a year later.

NewsOK.com reporter Chris Casteel asked Rep. Mullin if this coming term would, as Mullin vowed, be his last.

A simple yes or no question, eh?

Well, the incumbent’s response was less than unequivocal, “leaving open the possibility that he may run for a fourth term,” Casteel reported.

“Our position on this has not changed,” read Mullin’s official statement. “However, Christie and I will continue to seek the Lord’s guidance and do what is best for our family and the 2nd District of Oklahoma. The only election I am focused on right now is in 2016.”

Hmmm. Do you recall the Lord ever guiding anyone to break his word to the people?

What a dodge!

Mullin is like a burglar announcing, “I’m not sure if I’m going to rob your home when I get out of jail. That’s too far off in the future. But I’m seeking spiritual advice about it.”

Come to think of it, incumbent politicians and burglars have quite a lot in common.

But not Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Tags Markwayne Mullin, oklahoma, politicians, sneaky politicians, term limits, U.S. Term Limits

folly ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies tax policy

Rebranding the Odious?

tax, taxes, charity, IRS, I.R.S., Alain de Botton, branding, rebranding, illustration, folly, Common Sense

Being a clever person is hard work. Many of the truly clever things about everyday life have already been said. New and innovative cleverness? A rare thing indeed.

But if you are in the business of being clever, that puts you in a pickle, if “being relevant” and “worth our attention” is part of your cachet.

Take Alain de Botton, a very clever man who has written at least one brilliant book . . . and several not-so-brilliant ones. He has tackled Proust, Epicureanism, and is now deeply into religion.

Well, maybe not so deeply.

He wants politicians to follow the lead of religious leaders, who, he asserts, are masters of rebranding. (I had thought that was for marketing specialists.)

Recognizing that the word “tax” is an odious one — few people really like paying their taxes — de Botton says that politicians should follow what “religions do” and “rebrand ‘tax’ as ‘charity.’”

Charity, he notes, is a “much more appealing word.”

Well, yeah. That’s because charity is a word for love. It is all about deep concern, sympathy, etc., and “acts of charity” are expressions of love and concern.

And the only way that acts of charity can be determined to be expressions of concern is that they are voluntary. Taxes, on the other hand, are not voluntary. They are taken by force (try not paying them — force will find you).

Forcing people to “be charitable” will automatically scuttle that very purpose.

Trying to rescue politics from the stench of compulsion should not be done with rebranding, but by limiting government.

The less government, the less force.

And more scope for charity.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Tags branding, charity, Fed Up With Taxes, image, marketing, propaganda, tax, tax policy

general freedom ideological culture meme moral hazard nannyism too much government U.S. Constitution

Dear Bernie: Here’s How Rights Work. . .

Post author By CS Admin
Post date March 30, 2016
1 Comment on Dear Bernie: Here’s How Rights Work. . .

Dear Bernie, rights, violation, violates, how rights work, meme, Common Sense

A new “right” that violates other fundamental rights, can’t be a right.

A healthy democracy depends on the spreading of good ideas. If you found this article useful, please share it with friends by clicking on any of the social media icons below.

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Tags Bernie Sanders, health care, human rights, Individual rights, medical socialism, rights, socialism

Accountability crime and punishment ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Misleading Metric

pay gap, gender, legislation, justice, fairness, hypocrisy, Sen. Susan Lee

Yesterday’s Washington Post clarified how the “gender pay gap” is calculated:

This metric does not take into account the different types of jobs, varying levels of experience and education, or women who lose seniority and promotion opportunities when they leave the workforce temporarily to care for children, which they do in larger numbers than men. Still, it is widely used as a measuring stick.

The Post informed readers that the gap isn’t what it appears, that it doesn’t actually measure discrimination against women. Nonetheless, the paper justifies promoting this misleading statistic with the claim that it is “widely used.”

Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Post’s story was sparked by legislation in Maryland to purportedly mandate “equal-pay” between men and women. Yet, the bill specifically authorizes unequal pay for any “bona fide factor other than sex or gender identity.”

It’s already against the law for employers to pay women less for the same job or to deny equal opportunity for advancement. This legislation, on the other hand, seems designed to create full-employment for lawyers. If passed, employees could sue their employer for “assigning work less likely to lead to promotion or future opportunities.”

Sen. Susan Lee, the bill’s sponsor, proclaims that, “Any gap is unequal and unacceptable.”

What about the gender pay gap in the Maryland Legislature? Using the same misleading metric, female legislative employees make less than what males make.

Unacceptable!

So, why don’t legislators fix their own pay discrepancy before they dictate to everyone else?

Or better yet, they could simply stop peddling a divisive non-solution for this dishonestly hyped “problem.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Tags feminism, gender pay gap, Sen. Susan Lee, sex equality, wage legislation, wages

Accountability crime and punishment general freedom national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Mr. Most Merciless

Obama, clemency, pardon, mercy, crime, Common Sense, illustration

Usually, when contemplating the Office of the President of the United States, our cause for complaint is excess of power. Our country was founded on opposition to such centralized power — initially directed against King George III — and the Constitution written, in part, to allow a strong federal government without feeding the beast of Tyranny.

Yet, today, I’m not bemoaning unchecked presidential power. Instead, the opposite: an important presidential power that Mr. Obama lets lie unused.

What is that power?

The executive’s power to pardon, defined in Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

Yesterday, George Lardner Jr., a scholar with the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, and Political Science Professor P. S. Ruckman Jr., the editor of the Pardon Power Blog, reported in an op-ed for The Washington Post, that “Obama has a clemency record comparable to the least merciful presidents in history. He has granted just 70 pardons, the lowest mark for any full-term president since John Adams, and 187 commutations of sentence.”

“Obama’s record is all the more deplorable because of assurances that he has made,” argue Lardner and Ruckman, noting that the Department of Justice’s Clemency Project 2014 — designed to provide relief to non-violent drug offenders and announced “to great fanfare” — has “become a bureaucratic disaster.”

With all the injustice found even in the best justice systems, I cannot understand how a compassionate person could ignore this power. Or use it, as President Bill Clinton did, to provide last-minute pardons for cronies and high-rolling campaign contributors.

Have mercy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Tags capital punishment, clemency, crime, Obama, President Barack Obama, presidential pardon, prisons

meme national politics & policies responsibility

Trump’s Empire?

Donald Trump, Thomas Jefferson, empire, entangling alliances, meme

The next president will take office as this year’s $544 billion deficit pushes up the U. S. national debt to nearly $20 trillion . . . which is chicken feed compared to nearly $127 trillion in unfunded liabilities racked up by our entitlement state.

And, on top of that, add our outrageous world policeman fees.

The Washington Post reports that, “thanks to various treaties and deals set up since 1945, the U.S. government might be legally obligated to defend countries containing 25 percent of the world’s population.”

And boy, has America, World Policeman, been active! The U. S. military is well into a second decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, engaged in ongoing armed conflict in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, and with ISIS and its terror, not seemingly degraded at all but growing.

No wonder, then, that the iconoclastic Donald J. Trump questioned — at a Washington Post editorial board meeting, just before the Brussels terrorist attacks — the wisdom of U.S. commitments to NATO, South Korea and Japan.

“NATO was set up when we were a richer country,” Trump explained. “We’re not a rich country. We’re borrowing, we’re borrowing all of this money. We’re borrowing money from China. . . .”

So why subsidize wealthy countries? “Well, if you look at Germany . . . Saudi Arabia . . . Japan . . . South Korea — I mean we spend billions of dollars on Saudi Arabia, and they have nothing but money.”

Lest I get my hopes up too high, it seems unlikely that Trump would change actual policy, but simply make “a much different deal with them, and it would be a much better deal.”

Here’s an even better deal, as our third president, Thomas Jefferson, articulated: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations. Entangling alliances with none.”

It’s quite affordable.

This is Common Sense, I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Tags 2016 Presidential race, Donald Trump, empire, NATO, Presidential campaign 2016, Thomas Jefferson

crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard privacy property rights too much government

Taking Our Stuff Back

civil asset forfeiture, police, abuse, robbery, Common Sense

There’s been a big push for criminal justice reform, with some recent progress on civil asset forfeiture.

This is the process through which police and government agencies grab a citizen’s money or property — even if the citizen is never charged with a crime, much less convicted. Then, to get one’s stuff back, a citizen must sue to prove the stuff was innocent of being involved in criminal activity.

Asset forfeiture without a criminal conviction turns our system of justice on its head, encouraging bad behavior by police — ahem, stealing — by rewarding departments and agencies that get to keep the loot.

Reform legislation passed through an Oklahoma House committee earlier this week and now goes to the full House. Television News 9 in Oklahoma City began its report by acknowledging that, “A watered down version of the civil asset forfeiture bill has crossed another hurdle in the state Legislature.”

That’s because a bill to end civil asset forfeiture outright had already failed in the Senate. The currently pending legislation requires that citizens who sue to recover their property and win be awarded their legal fees.

It’s progress . . . but still not justice enough.

Late last month, Wyoming’s Gov. Matt Mead signed reform legislation mandating that there be a probable cause hearing before the legal forfeiture process can begin. Good. But that was after Gov. Mead vetoed a better bill, which stopped all official, convictionless snatching of stuff.

Police taking people’s stuff without having to prove a crime must be ended altogether, abolished. That means we better stop waiting for politicians. Instead, petition this important principle directly to the people — use ballot initiatives in cities and states across the country.

No time like the present.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Common Sense Needs Your Help!

Tags asset forfeiture, ballot initiative, civil asset forfeiture, law, police, police abuse